Monthly Archives: January 2007

These are the adventures of the Starship Enterprise (no, not that one. The
other one before it you never heard of. The sensual one), its continuing
mission to sensually blunder around not particularly strange or interesting
worlds, to antagonize sensual new life and new civilizations and to
sensually go where three decades of Star Trek and just about every other
science fiction show on the planet have gone before.

Trip: Hey I know what’ll cheer you up, half-naked men playing with a
ball.

Archer: Ah, the good old days. No decisions. No aliens. Just some
water and a ball. Things were so simple back and then and sensual too.

Trip: So why did you get into space travel again?

Archer: Because those damned Vulcans screwed my father!

Trip: Oh right. Say there’s a Giant CGI Plot Cliche in the cargo
bay. Want to go and get swallowed by it?

Archer: Can’t be any worse than the Andorians, the Tandarans or any
of the other many, many aliens who’ve captured me before and will go on
capturing me week after week after week.

Act 3 – Cargo bay is coated with pale slime as the CGI Plot Cliche covers
the two redshirts.

Archer: Hmm that slime looks potentially dangerous. Let’s go wander
right next to it and see what happens.

Trip: I’m with you. At least this time I’m not in my underwear.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche: Need Brains! Brains!

Five Minutes Later Archer and Trip are also swallowed up by the
Giant CGI Plot Cliche.

Archer: My God, how could this have happened and who could have seen
it coming?

Trip: We did take every possible precaution, none. I’m as baffled
as you are.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche: Where are the Brains I was promised?
B-R-A-I-N-S!

Act 4 – The rest of the crew stand around watching the Giant CGI Plot Cliche
on the monitors.

Dr. Phlox: I’ve determined that this creature has formed neural
links to its victims and is transforming them into one giant entity.

Mayweather: Oh My God! It’s draining Captain Archer of all his
personality! We have to do something before it’s too late.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche: So Hungry! All Crust and No Filling! Need
BRAINS!

In the Cargo Bay, Archer, Trip and Redshirt #2 are delirious.

Archer: So one time in water polo I had this ball and…

Trip: Would you shut up about your water polo already!

Archer: But it was the highlight of my career and it taught me
everything I needed to know about commanding a Starship. Get captured early
and often, wander around with no purpose or direction and treat everything
as either self-righteous cause or a joke.

Trip: That explains a lot.

Redshirt #1: Whee I have more lines!

Giant CGI Plot Cliche: Oh My, this was a big mistake. I had the
chanche to crawl onto a Vulcan ship, but no I had to go for the flashy
nacelles. So Hungry! Need Brains!

Back on the Command Bridge

T’Pol: I have determined what course of action we shall pursue. Reed,
first throw together a hastily conceived rescue attempt that will only serve
to antagonize the creature. Afterwards you can trump all of human science by
developing the force field on your own in a few hours. Then Hoshi, you and I
will work together on an improbable method of communicating with the
creature during which we will clash and then bond and learn to work together
and in the process of which put our cultural differences aside to work as a
team.

Dr. Phlox: No need for any of that, the creature is growing thinner.
It appears to be starving to death.

Mayweather: Why in the world would that be?

Dr. Phlox: Well you see the creature feeds off neural energy and when
it can’t get enough neural energy from brain activity it begins starving to
death.

Hoshi: So you’re saying that because the Captain’s brain is
incompatible with the creature’s biological makeup, the creature is starving
to death.

Dr. Phlox: No, I meant that the creature’s food supply is practically
non-existant in its chosen victim. But you can believe whatever makes you
feel better.

Mayweather: Oh by the way I located the aliens who infected us so they
can give us the coordinates to take the poor creature home.

Reed: Ahem, shouldn’t we consider perhaps killing it?

Hoshi: No it’s just a poor misunderstood alien brainsucking leech!

Alien #1: Before we give you the coordinates, we demand an apology.

Mayweather: An apology for what?

Alien #1: For this episode, for starters.

Montgomery: Very well, on behalf of Viacom, Paramount, UPN, Rick
Berman, Brannon Braga and all the cast and crew, I sincerely apologize for
this episode!

Alien #1: Now apologize for Fusion! Apologize! We demand an apology!

Montgomery: Never!

Act 5 – The creature is put in a box and released out on a planet’s surface
where it immediately attaches itself to an earthworm.

Act 0 – A man with heavy eyebrows steps out from behind the camera against a
background of stars. The stars are dim and clearly most of the galaxy is
dead or dying.

Rod Serling: Flash forwards FIVE BILLION YEARS. Earth’s star is a
faint glowing red ball and the homeworld of man is a wasteland on which no
living being has walked upon in a long time. The Federation is long
forgotten. Starfleet’s starships are dust and the human race has joined the
dinosaurs in that great theme park we call extinction. Not a single of
Rembrandt’s paintings or Michelangelo’s sculptures or Rod Stewart’s songs
have survived. Every accomplishment of man from the iron knife to the
transporter is vanished. All except for ONE.

Camera pans down to show the same planet covered now with Giant CGI
Plot Cliche creatures. From space the planet appears as a series of
geometrically perfect dots filled with water.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #1: Hello Captain Archer.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #2: Hello to you too, Captain Archer.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #1: Do you wish to play water polo, Captain
Archer?

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #3: Hello, Captain Archer and Captain Archer.
What can I do for you?

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #2: We were just wondering where Water Polo
comes from?

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #3: Ah yes, the age old question. Many
theologists speculate that at one time our distant ancestor came into
contact with a being known only as CAPTAIN ARCHER. It absorbed this Captain
Archer’s mind but could not divest itself of this identity because by
ingesting Archer, it had also ingested Archer’s stupidity has deprived it of
the ability to think and so it became Captain Archer and all its asexually
budded children after it were also called Captain Archer and that is why
today we are all called Captain Archer.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #1: This is certainly interesting but what does
it have to do with Water Polo?

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #3: Well there are further speculations that
this Captain Archer being was rather stupid and the only contents in its
mind referred to Water Polo and thus this was the only knowledge we possess.
Perhaps had this Captain Archer’s mind contained great works of literature
or technical information we might have built a great civilization that could
have taken us off this world so that some form of life might survive the
death of the milky way galaxy.

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #2: So instead we built our civilization around
Water Polo and turned our whole planet into a bunch of Water Polo pools and
we play Water Polo all day, thus dooming the last civilization in the galaxy
to extinction!

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #3: Exactly, this Captain Archer being formed
us too well in his own stupid image!

Giant CGI Plot Cliche #1: So Captain Archer, still want to go play
water polo!

Camera turns sharply to show Rod Serling standing to the side and
trying to smoke a hypospray, with Brannon Braga by his side

Rod Serling: There is an ancient Chinese saying, a civilization built
on water will endure, but one built on Water Polo will not survive. Thus
ends the last civilization in the galaxy and along with it dies the last
work of man and also the very thing that killed it. Water Polo.

Ironic isn’t it?

Brannon Braga: Ironic perhaps, but sensual…most definitely. So, so
very sensual! I think I’m going to play some…Water Polo too.

Braga runs off chasing the Giant CGI Plot Cliche creatures who run
away from him shrieking in terror.

Rod Serling: And now I think I’m going to be sick…in the Twilight
Zone!

Since patents for amusing cats with laser pointers, patenting technologies and control schemes other people invented, and Blackboard now trying to sue over a patent for an online course system, I think I can top them all. How? Easy.

I’m going to patent the system of patents. My patent will cover maintaining a system for protecting intellectual property through patents. This will also allow me to sue every single patent holder in existence.

Neat isn’t it?

Once I’ve patented patenting, I can patently sue every patent holder in the world and then work out patenting lawsuits so they can’t sue me back either. With a plan like that, I can’t possibly lose.

Like this:

1. The blog is named after its inventor, Walter J. Blogg, who implemented the world’s first blog on the Babbage Difference Engine in the 19th century. Using the existing technology it took over a year to make a single post and there was absolutely nobody else to blogroll.

2. The blogsphere is constantly growing. Blogs already cover 2/3rds of the earth’s surface. Scientists predict a condition known as Global Blogging in which blogs will cover the earth suffocating all life on the planet.

3. Blogging has become an increasing source of wealth. Statistics show that the average blogger earned 0.011 cents from blogging using Google Adsense in 2006. That figure is expected to double to 0.022 in 2007.

4. The word ‘blog’ coincides with existing words in many languages. In Lativan, Blog is slang for ‘Explosive Diarrhea.’ There are no blogs in Latvia.

5. In Finland, ‘blog’ is a slang word for fornication. Blogs are extremely popular in Finland.

6. %33 of blogs contain nothing of any use to anyone whatsoever. The other %66 are worse. Don’t even ask about the remaining %1. Just don’t.

7. In previous centuries many people were under a misapprehension fostered by plays, books, movies and stories that other people’s lives were more interesting than theirs. The blog has performed a valuable service by disabusing them of that notion. As a useful side benefit, this is expected to lead to the end of all fiction, novels, films and theater as we know it.

9. Every time you make a post an angel dies. Every time you check your sitemeter, two angels die. Every time you check your trackbacks entire companies of angels die. Every time you use the word ‘blogsphere,’ a tsunami hits Indonesia.

10. There are no good blogging services. There are only blogging services that seem less frustrating and annoying than the one you’re using now… until you actually start using them.

Like this:

When a movie is prepped for airing on TV, especially if that movie was R-Rated, it takes some work finding good family friendly TV substitutes for the 4 letter words that used to be there. With a movie like Big Lebowski removing them alone produces something like the Mad TV skit of the Pax TV version of the Sopranos, after all there’s a condensed version of the Big Lebowski made up entirely of obscenities.

The rewording on this classic scene though takes the cake, even better than Die Hard’s ‘Yipee Kayayaaa Major Falcon’ that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but ‘This is What Happens When You Find a Stranger in the Alps’ or ‘This is What Happens When you Feed a Stoner’ turns John Goodman’s famous frenzied bat assault on a car into something oddly surreal or downright dadaistic.

Enjoy.

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To the very sad and disturbed person who came here looking for and I quote, “Harper Tyr slash,” I have news for you, you need serious help and I mean really really serious help. I mean maybe you’re from Finland where Harper Tyr slash means Harper and Tyr make a sandwich together, instead of Harper and Tyr physically express the love that dare not speak its name to avoid the convulsive vomiting that must surely follow.

But let’s break it down and help you find what you’re looking for. Harper was one of the most annoying characters on TV period. Tyr is a Nietschian who prides himself on the pursuit of perfection. Harper is short, skinny and has dumb hair. Now how hard up would Tyr have to be to even remotely consider Harper as a viable option?

A Mary Jane hurt comfort scenario just ain’t gonna do it pal. You need something a lot stronger than that. Now say the Magog have wiped out all other sentient life in the universe. It’s Harper and Tyr and a few trillion Magog. Still I’m thinking Tyr will naturally choose the Magog because even though they’ll plant baby Magog inside him that will eat him out from the inside, at least they won’t be nearly as irritating as Harper.

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The CDA, the Communications Decency Act, whose stated intent was to
ban internet messages which are “obscene, indecent, lewd, lascivious,
or filthy.” and imposed criminal penalties on users transmitting them.
That definition was so vauge that it would have essentially wiped out
free speech online.

Fortunately the Supreme Court stopped the Clinton Administration and
Janet Reno twice from implementing the CDA but now if Senator Kerry
who voted for the CDA becomes President, will we see another
Democratic administration pushing media and internet censorship?
Meanwhile Senator Lieberman thinks that popular culture is the
resevoir of all sorts of filth that needs to be censored and has spent
nearly a decade harping on the same topic often using misleading and
outrightly false statistics to make his case. And these are the two
front runners for the Democratic Presidential nomination, one of them
may well become President.

In contrast to all the hot air being circulated about the Patriot Act,
this is the real threat to free speech that would affect all our
everyday lives down to posting a message on Usenet. Nor is this
scenario far-fetched. Al Gore, whose wife Tipper was part of the
Parents Media Research Council that was and is the group leading the
effort to censor TV and movies and music, in between babbling on about
his special relationship with Jesus stated with Orwellian doublespeak
during his campaign that censorship wouldn’t be “censorship but
citizenship.”

But then a lot of people who vote Democratic are in denial over the
strenght of the religious right in their own party and pretend that
it’s only a problem in the Republican Party. They only need to read
the excerpt from the following ‘prayer’ delivered to the Senate by a
Democrat, Senator James Exon, who co-sponsored the CDA that under a
Democratic administration became law…

“Almighty God, Lord of all life, we praise You for the advancements in
computerized communications that we enjoy in our time. Sadly, however,
there are those who are littering this information superhighway with
obscene, indecent, and destructive pornography. Virtual but virtueless
reality is projected in the most twisted, sick misuse of sexuality.
Violent people with sexual pathology are able to stalk and harass the
innocent. Cyber solicitation of teenagers reveals the dark side of
online victimization.

Lord, we are profoundly concerned about the impact of this on our
children. We have learned from careful study how children can become
addicted to pornography at an early age. Their understanding and
appreciation of Your gift of sexuality can be denigrated and
eventually debilitated. Pornography disallowed in print and the mail
is now readily available to young children who learn how to use the
computer.

Oh God, help us care for our children. Give us wisdom to create
regulations that will protect the innocent. In times past, You have
used the Senate to deal with problems of air and water pollution, and
the misuse of our natural resources. Lord, give us courage to balance
our reverence for freedom of speech with responsibility for what is
said and depicted.

Now, guide the Senators when they consider ways of controlling the
pollution of computer communications and how to preserve one of our
greatest resources: The minds of our children and the future and moral
strength of our Nation. Amen.”

Easily the equal of anything Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell could
churn out. But while the media is more than willing to chop down
entire forests to produce acres of newsprint ranting about potential
abuses of the Patriot Act, they were far more disinclined to challenge
the Clinton Administration, to expose Senator Lieberman’s use of
fradulent statistics in his moral crusade or to question Kerry about
his vote for a bill that would have made free speech on the internet
obsolete for goals far less crucial or compelling than fighting
terrorism but for the purpose of imposing the Religious Right’s view
of morality on every internet user in America.

Now that Senator Thompson will play a DA on Law and Order, which other TV shows would make good homes for other former legislators

Now that Senator Thompson has will play a DA on Law and Order, which
other TV shows would make good homes for other former legislators and
in which roles.

I can see Bob Barr as the new detective on NYPD Blue, replacing
Sipowicz. Like Dennis Franz’s character, he’ll have some real racial
problems and possibly a drinking problem too and brutal solutions to
every problem.

I see McKinney joining ER as a flaky administrator committed to
bizarre alternative therapies and a belief that she’s being followed
by the CIA.

I can see Bob Dole as the crusty grandfather on an ABC sitcom like My
Wife and Kids.

Gary Condit could be a sleazy and marginally homicidal recurring
villain on Law and Order like Larry Miller was a few years back.

Like this:

nd believe me some of these are very shocking and really radical
revisions to the Superman mythology, but while people are claiming
that these will destroy the movie, I still think the film can be
good…

Spoilers
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* Instead of dying Jor El is portrayed as an absentee father who sent
his baby off in a pod to Earth and made up a whole story about the
planet blowing up, just so he wouldn’t have to pay child support.

* As part of a deal with an agricultural concern and to cash in on the
1920’s popularity of Popeye, Superman’s powers will now come from
downing cans of Spinach. A brief note in the film will explain that
this will be Kryptonian Spinach and will be green. Well more green
than usual anyway.

* Superman’s key opponent in the movie will be Satan. It will however
be revealed that Satan originally comes from Krypton, so it’s
all-right after all.

* In a particularly graphic sequence, Superman will solve the world’s
energy crisis by contributing his superpowered feces to be used in
nuclear power plants.

* Minor changes have been made to Lex Luthor’s charachter when it is
revealed that he is no longer an evil industrialist, but a KGB trained
ninja who undergoes a sex change and becomes Superman’s lover, before
being exposed as a Peruvian android…but otherwise he’s exactly the
same charachter.

* No significant changes have been made to the Kent family. However
Jonathan Kent will be played in the movie by Michael Jackson and
Martha Kent by Roseanne who will be improvising all their own
dialouge.

* Viewers will be challenged in their affection for Perry White who be
portrayed in the movie as a rabid racist.

* Rather than being an alien world far away from Earth, in the new
Superman film, Krypton will be located in New Jersey.

Like this:

Arguably the best part of This Is Spinal Tap is in the closing credits when the cast dead on copies the inane ramblings of rock stars with too much fame and money and no brains or common sense to go with them. The best classic lines of the movie are in here from ‘So when you’re playing you feel like a preserved moose?’ to ‘chapeau shop’ to ‘books on tape.’ Rob Reiner does the preening smug director dead on, which should be easy since it seems to be who he is in real life. That suggests that Reiner is the only one in this thing who isn’t acting, a further level of irony in a mockumentary there is no particular point in exploring.

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Star Trek is dead. I’m sorry to say this as a Star Trek fan but it is.
There’s no revitalizing it Nemesis was a disaster, a flawed movie
released mere days in a competitive movie season before Lord of the
Rings:TTT that crushed it to bits. Enterprise’s ratings have dropped
seriously and their high point was only Voyager’s series finale which
itself had mediocre ratings. Next season Enterprise goes up against
Smallville and Enterprise will be crushed, particularly in the Young
Adult Male demographic Enterprise needs badly to survive. That means
Enterprise may be the first series since the Original Series to be
canceled.

Meanwhile editor John Ordover is leaving which throws the Star Trek
books into chaos. Activision has made it rather clear they consider
the Star Trek license to be worthless. And that’s just on the short
list of bad news the franchise has been receiving over the past few
years.

Nemesis was an attempt to revitalize the film franchise with an
outside director and screenwriter. It flopped. Enterprise was an
attempt to revitalize the television series with a new approach that
disconnected itself more from the series, got back to basics and a
rougher less techier environment. It flopped. Now there’s a retooling
of Enterprise coming up for the third season that desperately tries
for relevance by referencing 9/11 and providing bigger enemies and
that’s likely to flop too particularly up against Smallville which is
the hot genre series of the moment.

Ultimately reinvention can never compensate for lack of talent and
creativity among the people who are supposed to have a vision but
instead are just trying to extend a franchise. That’s what Hollywood
never gets.